LAN is a label of the Department of New Media (vmk.zhdk.ch) at the University of Art and Design Zürich, Switzerland. Students, designers, artists and media workers operate under this name, bringing together a range of visualization, design, communication and analytical skills. The members of LAN have lived and worked in Zürich since 2001. Founded by Annina Ruest, Fabian Thommen, Marc Lee, Roman Abt and Silvan Zurbruegg.
LAN creates network-oriented interactive projects. They locate and critically discuss economic, political, cultural and creative “issue-clusters” that are essential for communication processes in digital networks. LAN views their open source/open content position as a small but effective stance against the cultural dominance of large IT corporations – developing applications and tools with free software modules and scripts, and publicizing their products for use by others.